


The Ticonderoga

by sttchr



Category: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: Apologies, Body Worship, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Non-Binary Character, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Fingering, Fix-It, Genderfluid Character, Healing, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Oral Sex, Other, Past Abuse, Past Torture, au where everything is little less terrible, au where fitz has emotional skills, intersex!fool, let's give those sailors something to giggle at, physiotherapy results
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 16:00:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20726894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sttchr/pseuds/sttchr
Summary: I felt the Fool shift against my side. “You wanted a break and you took it.” he said. “So like you, Changer.” A couple of strands of his pale hair had flown to tickle my face, and I smoothed them to his head absently. I wondered if he was yearning for a stone dragon of his own, but did not dare to ask.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the sea voyage to Kelsingra, in a slight bend of the canon where Things Actually Happen in the marital cabin.
> 
> ( rather vague and wordy)

The Fool pulled the shirt over his head, tossing it beside the bunk bed with an uncharacteristic abandon. In the quietly swaying lantern light of the cabin his eyes where veering to the wood panels behind my head, but the preciseness of his posture was unerring. Narrow limbs arranged artfully against the sheets, all unfurling of wrist and ankle.  
The figure he cut was familiar yet strange: In the privacy of our own place, he sometimes allowed the playfullness of him blend into the dignified grace of her, a heady mix of mystery. Without her flowy robes he looked stronger, healthier, the definition of his small muscles visible. I could not resist. I traced one in his shoulder, feeling the firmness of it.

His misty eyes had a blink of glee to them. "Like what you see, Prince FitzChivalry?"

"Very much. The stretching and juggling has paid of."

He slid his hands under my shirt, in turn lingering appreciatively at my belly. My body was not of the fighter I had been in the prime of my youth, but I knew of worse enough to be grateful for what I still had.

"You feel good too." the Fool said, a little breathy. "Landowning suits you better than murder."

I chuckled at that. "I never was much of a murderer. I sometimes feel like I spent more time being assassinated than assassinating during my career."

"Exactly."

He traced an old swordcut in my side. It was only a pale line now, long ago settled, almost forgotten. In him I could feel the details of his hardships as a process still going on. The asymmetry of his posture, the limited range of motion where something pulled, spoke of a body trying to find a way to get used to new absences and presences. The ridges and hollows of scars had made a landscape of his skin. But his healing was still a marvel. The wretch I had stabbed in a marketplace was almost gone, especially on days as good as this. And it wasn't that long ago when he had wanted to hide it all. Yet here he now was, against my body, leaning in to me like a man who had nothing to lose. The dragon blood that had given him his few jewel-like scales also seemed to have restored in him a spirit, a flicker of the old Fool that I thought I'd lost forever, like a hue of gold spread where so recently had only been ash and ruin. 

I wanted to make my hands radiate the force of my feeling for him, to erase any wrong done to his body or his mind. I wanted to wrap him in my appreciation, to keep him safe and certain in my love. To make sure he knew how proud of him I was for simply continuing to exist. But it was only my hand that travelled the planes of his body, tracing, measuring, drawing him in, to ensure myself that my eyes were not lying, he was there, right there. 

My wandering fingers came over the slight swell of the nipple, and he took in a sharp breath at my touch. I quickly checked his face to make certain that it was indeed a breath of plesure.  
"All good?" I whispered, though his expression had already confirmed it.  
Curious, I bent to plant a light kiss to his nipple, tracing my finger around the other one, and earned another sharply sucked in _yes._ Delighted of this discovery, I kept at nibbling and put a little teeth into it this time. He squirmed against me making pleased noises.

Finally I gave in to the tugging fingers at the corners of my shirt and broke away for long enough to pull the fabrics off from my own body. I held him by the waist, marveling the angular definition of him, the smoothness of the small meadows of skin I found. I carefully traced my thumb down the line of his hipbone. How could something so lithe and graceful be so strong and have withstood so much?

"Fitz. Don't stop." he breathed.

His eagerness spread a warmth in me that was threatening to blaze into a bonfire. He still liked his distance, often keeping his clothes on when we stole our private moments, preferring to just press our bodies together in a heated embrace, or to help me take my own thrill. Now I caressed gently down, and up again, my thumb going against the grain of the fine fair pubic hair. He shuddered in response. I bent down over him, to kiss his breastbone, to breathe hoarse "are you sure?" into the groove of his ribs.

"Please beloved. Touch me."

My hand traced his inner thigh upwards and he wriggled a little, opening his leg appreciatively. Desire took another heavy leap in my own groin. But that could wait. I wanted to seize his good mood, repay his struggles with a pleasure that we both could bottle inside us against darker days.

I placed a whole palm on him, pushing a gentle finger to open him up. He left out a low moan in response. He felt warm and moist and alive. My fingers traced in a slow circle around the opening, savoring all the details, every small ridge of flesh, and the response of movement my touch caused in him.

I glanced up to his face. His head was thrown back and eyes closed, his hair disheveled all around him, his face in a look of bliss. Seeing him, usually so composed and aware, stripped of all the roles, made me smile.

"You're so beautiful", I said.

"Oh Fitz. Beloved."

I slid two fingers inside him, my hand keeping the steady motion, my thumb resting at the sensitive skin at the top of his opening, beside the base of his growth. I knew enough of him to know how to let his body show the pace to me. I was not a wholly inexperienced lover, but he was different to any human I had lain with. It made me want him even more. What a gift I was given, being let in to all his secrets.

The Fool let out a groan and the rock of his hips picked pace in time to encourage me. I kissed his stomach, down the fine fuzz of his pubic hair, then softly along his knob, avoiding the tender tip of it. His distracted hands found my hair and wound deep into my curls. I worked my tongue for his pleasure, finally taking him into my mouth entirely, my fingers curling inside him. I thought nothing except him, his beauty, the fool, my fool, so alive and open at my hand, so here. After what felt both like a blink of an eye and an eternity, his legs tensed on the sides of my body. His muscles started to convulse and ripple as he came apart with a sound between a cry and a yell.

I moved up to gather him into my arms. I grabbed a handful of sheet behind his back, and then held him tight, as he continued to tremble and pulse against me, his leg flailing a little kick to my shin. I held him tight, softly caressing the hair on the back of his head when he became completely still except for a thundering heartbeat, then loose as a puppet with strings cut out, all tension flowing out from him, head lolling against my chest.

"I love you" I whispered. "All of you."

He let out a little sob in answer. I held him tight.


	2. Chapter 2

I awoke to feel the Fool rise from the bed. I heard the light tap of his feet on the floor, the sounds of water being poured. After a while of shuffling around the room he climbed back into the bunk and lay down beside me, slipping his cold toes next to mine under the blanket. I groaned and cracked an eye to look at him. He had pulled on a fresh robe, and in the faint moonlight his eyes peered into me like they could see perfectly. 

“You’re not bothered.”

“By what?”

“By my strangeness.”

“You’re not a stranger. You’re the Fool.”

“I am also other things.”

“To me, you’re you, whoever you are.” I said, rather stupidly. “And your feet are cold.”

I tossed the blanket to cover more of him, and he gratefully pulled closer to me, savoring in the heat of my body like a cat in winter. We laid silently for a while, listening the familiar creaks and pulls of the ship. 

“There was a time when it wasn’t so simple.”

I grimaced a little at that. “It was before.”

“Before you stole my first death, you thief. ”

I glanced at him, surprised to be fully awake now. Never had he made a jest of it. Since Aslevjal, I had known how every part in his body was put together, how the range of his joints was just slightly different, how the streams of his body flowed upwards where a humans would flow down. I had known because I had been inside him, had looked into every bit of it and commanded it to be alive.

The scales on his face caught a glimmer of silver from somewhere. It reminded me of water, like a sliver of the sea had found it's way into our cabin. Smile played on his face, yet behind it was something, a concern, a shadow.

“Before that.” I agreed. “But it wasn’t only the… ” my voice trailed away, wondering how to describe being in his body, the ultimate violation of his privacy with a magic I could not even start to comprehend. Remembering his death made the words stick in my throat. I didn't want to dwell on it.  
“it wasn’t only the knowledge” I tried to continue. “You also gave something back to me.”

“I only gave you back what was yours.” His fingers flicked to the long seam on my face, still there after so many decades. “I am sorry I caused you pain by it. You put away those memories for a reason. But I thought you..”

“No, Fool, you did the right thing.” I was surprised by the certainty of my own words. Had he? I remembered cursing him for it too, on some long nights when the memory of a boot of a dungeon guard had seemed more real than anything in my life, when the loneliness I could not take to Mollys bed was gnawing at my insides. My nightmares had mostly faded like my scars, but when he woke up in the night screaming and senseless from his own, I remembered. I leaned back against the pillow and felt the gap in my teeth with my tongue. The Skillhealing had repaired, and kept on repairing most of the damage my body had been through, but the tooth hadn’t grown back. I wondered about the limits of magic, how it could fix so much yet not grow anew things that were lost. 

“There was just too much of everything. I was tired of being angry all the time. I was supposed to be dead, yet I was alive, and the pain.. I wanted the pain to be dead with the rest of my life. It made me do foolish things.”

“That it did.” The Fool said with a sad smile in his voice. 

“I only needed time.”  
I was quiet for a while, thinking of Tom Badgerlock, the brutish bodyguard, comparing him to the Witted Bastard, a rash youth who had run to Tradeford with a mind to kill Regal, one barely convalescent man with a knife and a few herbs against a fortress. I thought of youth, of Molly’s sons, my sons. That man had been a boy younger than any of them now. So hurt, so focused on his misery.  
“I needed time to discover who I would be without all the anger and shame. The rate I was going I would have been dead again soon.”

I felt the Fool shift against my side. “You wanted a break and you took it.” he said. “So like you, Changer.” Couple of strands of his pale hair had flown to tickle my face, and I smoothed them to his head absently. I wondered if he was yearning for a stone dragon of his own, but did not dare to ask. 

“But I didn’t know the meaning of what I was missing before you gave it back to me.”

“Presence of dark makes the light look all the sweeter next to it.” His tone had gone dreamy.

“Yes. And sometimes anger is needed to remind us what is important.”

I ran my hand along the side of his jaw. He had given me back my pain, my wife, my mother, my daughter and my name. My love. “Fool. You did the right thing. It’s me who should apologize. I was so cold, and so cruel to you.”

“You gave me back my life, Fitz. Then you took it away, and gave it back again. I’ve had to learn to live it each time. Somehow.”

I turned to look him fully That narrow golden face showed too plainly the things I couldn’t repair. But I was determined to do right by him this time. “I don’t mean only your death... deaths. I have been so sorry about what I said to you before of things I didn’t understand. Of men and of... desire and love. Looking back, it reminds me of Brurrich lashing out in anger when encountering a fear. ” He looked startled. I gently cupped his face with my hand. “Fool, I am so sorry. I tried to write about it to you, but it was too little, too late. ” My throat was threatening to close on ne, but I had to make this clear to him. 

“You were just protecting yourself. You had already been rejected for having the Wit, it was reasonable you were afraid of-”

“No." I said firmly. "I was being an idiot. ”

“And that too.” The Fool leaned in for a quick kiss. “I forgive you.” He whispered against my cheek, nuzzling his nose to the stubble that was starting to grow again. “I forgive us. For being idiots.” It felt good. 

“I should shave” I muttered, “It grows so fast.”

“I kind of like the beard. When it doesn’t hide all of you.” 

I pulled him into an embrace and felt him let out a sigh. "Beloved, it’s good to have you back.“ 

"So it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> title borrowed from a lovely song.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tC9mv6Jdr4
> 
> thank you for reading. :) 
> 
> ps - if you'd like to beta read for me, get in touch!


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